Where'd You Go
by breakfastthief
Summary: Hermione disappears suddenly and without a trace. Was it Viktor Krum or something slightly more sinister?


**A/N: None of the characters, places, etc. belong to me. They belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing them. I promise I'll give them back. Also the title Where'd You Go and the lyrics at the bottom belong to Fort Minor.**

**Special thanks to pitchforkgirl for writing the first paragraph and giving me the idea. **

**--breakfastthief**

**Update: Now with less graphic images!!**

**Where'd You Go**

"This really is truely awful."

"If you need anything, anything at all, please send an owl."

"You're holding up remarkably well." If laughter had been possible, Ron would have done so at that last remark. He was only holding up well according to the loosest definition of the phrase; he hadn't jumped off the roof of the Burrow or fed himself to the gnomes, anyway. They thought that they were being helpful and comforting, but Ron wished they would just go away. Harry, realizing this told Ron to go upstairs while he fended off the unwanted visitors.

Ron stepped into his room, and instantly felt like he was about to be sick. He hadn't been in here since he and Hermione had been married six months before. Six months. Not nearly long enough. And now she was gone. Disappeared without a trace. There was some speculation that she'd left under her own steam, but Ron knew better. Six months. He hadn't even had time to get used to it, but that could be due to the fact that his mother, among others, hadn't taken the relationship seriously until they had announced their engagement. Some people still didn't.

_"Hermione," he said softly. They were sitting on a hill outside the Burrow watching the sun as it fell beneath the horizon._

_"Yes, Ron"_

_"Nevermind," he mumbled. Ron had been going through the "Nevermind Routine" for several days now. At least that's what Harry called it._

_"Ron."_

_"Yeah?"_

_"If you've got something to say, just say it already. I'm dying to know. No more chickening out, alright?"_

_"Alright. Here goes. Hermione, I've been meaning to do this for days now and just can't get it out. I've found myself falling hopelessly in love with you for a while now. Maybe it's been months, years even. I don't ever want to let you go, ever. Marry me, please?" He held out the small box, but never opened it because, next thing he knew, she knocked over with a kiss so fierce that he was momentarily stunned._

_"Yes, Ron, yes...of course. I think I've been waiting for this moment for several years now. I love you Ronald Weasley. Forever._

Ron lay on his Chudley Cannons bedspread, not bothering to turn down the sheets. He felt helpless, stupid. He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. It was several moments before he realized that Harry was standing in the doorway.

"Ron, your mum says dinner's ready."

"I'm not hungry."

"Just come down...we miss you."

Downstairs, Ron took his accustumed seat at the long table. It was wierd not sitting directly across from Hermione but Ginny and Harry sat faithfully next to him. The conversation at the other end of the table was lighthearted and good-natured. Ron stayed out of it, picking at his food for something to do. Harry was also distant, as if he knew something sinister that he didn't want the others to know. Slowly the convorsation took a darker turn, toward current events.

"Ron," Mrs. Weasley said exasperatedly, "eat something, or you'll starve. There's no use worrying over something like this."

"What do you mean 'no use worrying'? Mum, Hermione's out there somewhere...she needs me," he finished quietly.

"Ronald--" Mrs. Weasley began.

"Don't call me Ronald," he said in a pained voice.

"Fine but it's your name. Hermione probably just wasn't ready for this yet. I always thought that her and Viktor were better suited..."

"No," Ron half-yelled, standing up suddenly, "she promised...she promised...that she'd never leave. Ever. End of story. He stormed off up to his room, a place that he was seeing a lot of these days.

_"Ron," her quiet voice caught him by surprise. She had apparated up to his room so quietly and it was dark._

_"Yeah," he replied groggily, even though it was night, he couldn't seem to get to sleep._

_"I was just thinking--"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Nevermind," she caught the look on his face in the muted light of his wand and plowed on, "when are we going to inform your parents about, you know, about this." she waved her left hand in front of his face, "I've already told mine."_

_"And?"_

_"They're thrilled to say the least."_

_"Well that's great. We'll tell mine tomorrow. They should be alright...they let Ginny marry Harry, anyway."_

_"I have a strange feeling that that was a slightly different situation," Hermione said somewhat coldly and disapparated._

"Ron," the quiet voice made him sit straight up in his bed, hoping against hope, but knowing the subtle differences between Hermione's voice and that of his sister's.

"What do you want," he said angrily.

"To tell you that I believe you and so does Harry but he's acting oddly. If Hermione was going to just up and go like that I have a feeling that I would have at least noticed something was off. She seemed so normal, so happy. She loved you Ron.

"Loved?" Ron had noticed the past tense and didn't like it very much.

"Sorry Ron, I suppose that was a bit morbid wasn't it? It's just that Harry has been so subdued lately and everytime I think he's going to tell me something new, he either says 'nevermind' or 'you know I love you Ginny' or changes the subject. I don't like how he's acting. It makes me a bit morbid I suppose."

"I'm glad that you guys believe me at least. I hate it that mum won't though."

"She'll see reason. Sooner or later, she'll see reason," Ginny headed for the door, "and Ron, I know you don't need or want to hear this but keep hanging in there. Things will get better. Eventually."

_Breakfast the next morning was a somewhat quiet affair. The silence made it all the more difficult for Ron to make the announcement that he needed to make. Finally Hermione spoke._

_"Ronald, isn't there something that you needed to say to your parents?"_

_"Oh yeah! Mum, Dad, I have something very important to tell you. Hermione and I are going to get married."_

_"Ronald, don't you think this is rushing it just a bit?" His name didn't sound as good when his mother said it. "I just don't think the two of you are ready for this."_

_"Mum! You let Harry and Ginny get married and Ginny younger than the both of us!"_

_"Yes, but their relationship was ready for it. Yours isn't quite there, I don't think." Ron let a long string of explecitives flow and not even Hermione admonished him for it. _

_"Mum, Hermione and I have been dating since long before Harry and Ginny started, so I don't see the problem."_

_"Well I don't suppose that I can stop you, but I'm not going to like it either."_

Ron couldn't sleep that night. His dreams were plagued by visions of terrible things happening to Hermione, including marrying Viktor Krum. Finally he got up. He would go for a walk, down to the tree on the hill where this trouble had all started. Not that it was all bad trouble, his six-month marriage to Hermione had been the best six months of his life. He meandered slowly around the grounds of the Burrow, reveling in the stillness, the silence. The tree would be his last stop. Slowly he finished his tour of the place he knew so well and made his way over the the hill, and the tree.

Something on the ground caught his eye. A dark, shapeless mass lay on the ground next to the tree. He moved closer to see what it was and had to fight off the urge he had to be sick. It was her. The mess on the ground was Hermione. She was dead. And suddenly Ron knew what Harry had been hiding from them all. Greyback had not died in the Battle of Hogwarts. There was only one thing left to do.

The next morning's still air was soon rent with Mrs. Weasley's sobbing screams as she discovered the ravaged corpse of her barely daughter-in-law laying right underneath her youngest son, silently swinging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

_Where'd you go?  
I miss you so,  
Seems like it's been forever,  
That you've been gone.  
-Fort Minor_


End file.
